The uncomfortable truth, though, whether by misjudgement or carelessness, it has strayed onto some pretty awkward territory.

For those who haven’t seen it, Asda’s current TV commercial features children miming – and striking appropriate poses – to a UK Drill inspired track. The aim is obvious – the spot is designed to reassure kids and parents alike that you won’t become a playground pariah just because you’re decked out in Asda gear.

From our perspective, as a black-owned agency, so far, so familiar. If you want to make the banal seem cool, what do you do? You reach for a subgenre of rap – edgy urban music is regularly appropriated in this way and most of the time it is done, at best, clumsily. It has become a standard gambit in the mainstream agency playbook.

But it’s not always a tariff-free strategy – as the Asda campaign more than amply illustrates. The problem is that Drill is a music genre that Asda really doesn’t want to be associating itself with. It really doesn’t.

So the ad, potentially, is only going to play well among audiences who know very little about the music scene. Or know just enough to believe that Asda and its agency are somehow, in this instance “with it”.

Because of course Drill is more than edgy. It tips right over the edge – it’s a genre glorifying criminal violence. Drill groups have been subjected to Criminal Behaviour Orders and YouTube bans and the music has been associated generally, especially in London, with knife crime and gang violence.

For Asda to drag it into the school playground is, well, to say the least, unfortunate. And that’s before we get into the nitty gritty of how this was cast and directed.

Would these child actors have had to listen to numerous drill tracks to be able to deliver their contribution to the soundtrack? This is where things, at a personal level, get morally complex, as there aren’t many Drill tracks out there that don't feature the typical “negative” content that the subgenre is known and has become popular for.

Even if the child actors listened to “clean” (muted expletives or re-recordings of expletives into non-expletives) versions of those tracks that can be found on streaming platforms like YouTube or Spotify; the problem is still that those kids would have listened to the content of those songs and possibly still been able to decode the negative connotations from the non-explicit lyrics about or around drugs, violence or other criminal activities.

One way or another, we would have loved to be a fly on the wall at the rehearsal studios.

We’re not saying that Drill is an inappropriate music genre in all advertising contexts. There’s a case to be made for this, clearly. But no, on balance. There are some adult categories where the risks of brand contamination are far lower – and perhaps worth taking. We’re also aware that some audiences, not least those from ethnic backgrounds, will find the Asda ad funny – though not always in a good way. But the sad fact remains that many will be dismayed or even angered.

There are those who argue that ethnic communities feel a sense of pride when they hear “their” music in any mainstream context. And of course in some senses it’s true – up to a point. But it’s equally true that many feel patronised (at best) when the music is co-opted in a crass or cynical manner.

Asda could and should have done better. And these aren’t difficult issues to put right. You just have to involve the right people.

Would we have made a slightly different Back to School commercial? Yes. And would it have been properly cool? Hell yes.

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We are highly-skilled diversity consultants with an aptitude for helping brands develop black-British cultural competency and launch culturally tailored campaigns. To get in touch, contact chioma@theemhglobal.com today!!